New York State Assemblyman Peter Lopez, center at podium, addresses those gathered, including Brian Hemlock, background left, president of TCI of New York, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the company's new headquarters on Monday, May 19, 2014, in Coeymans, N.Y. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

New York State Assemblyman Peter Lopez, center at podium, addresses...

Brian Hemlock, president of TCI of New York, addresses those gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony for the company's new headquarters on Monday, May 19, 2014, in Coeymans, N.Y. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

TCI of New York held a small reception Monday to formally acknowledge the building of its new transformer processing facility, which is expected to be completed by summer's end on land visible from the state Thruway.

TCI President Brian Hemlock and Republican Assemblyman Pete Lopez of Schoharie spoke in front of 50 people about the adversity TCI has overcome to make the $7 million facility a reality — a nod to not only the 2012 fire that devastated its old plant in Ghent, Columbia County, but the protest of the plant's location by a small group of Coeymans residents.

The company faced push-back from the town's planning board chairman and vice chairwoman. They resigned from the board before the site plan was approved, claiming that pressure from the town to support the new plant was too strong for their environmental concerns to be heard.

In March, the Coeymans Heritage Society won a lawsuit in state Supreme Court that nullified a zoning change for the TCI site because the town did not do the proper environmental review. However, TCI said the ruling had no impact on its construction and continued working on the plant off Riverview Drive.

The town has since held another public hearing and voted last week to again zone the plot industrial, along with eight other properties in the Route 144 corridor, said Coeymans Supervisor Stephen Flach.

"It's a story of perseverance and commitment," Lopez said at the reception, which was held about a mile away from the site in Coeymans Landing park. "Going through something of that magnitude, it's easy to walk away."

TCI breaks down former electrical transformers and other oil-filled equipment and prepares the parts for recycling. Company officials have said that when they receive a transformer that has more than 50 parts per million of PCBs, the equipment is packaged and shipped to another facility.

The outer walls of the new building have gone up, as well as the outer structure for the plant's office space. TCI is working at a temporary site at the Port of Coeymans with 18 employees and will add 10 when the new facility is complete, Hemlock said.

Flach said Carver Laraway, the owner of the Port of Coeymans who is leasing the land under TCI's new plant, is using the adjacent former mushroom factory for storage, and has put new siding on that building, which once was covered in graffiti.

Laraway also is planning for a bridge to be built that will carry truck traffic directly from Route 144 to Riverview Drive over Coeymans Creek. Currently, trucks must navigate a sharp turn from Route 144 and pass some houses and a church.